What makes Antiques Roadshow so compelling? Probably something like this:
“It’s Italian…” Big smile.
“Late 19th Century…” Still smiling.
“…not marble.” Slight mouth twitch.
“And see this crack?” Look of concern.
It’s that moment when you realize along with the owner of the antique that the bust of the young peasant girl may be worth diddly-squat. You feel for them. They probably had hoped that the little statue would be their winning Powerball ticket. When given the appraisal amount, they recreate their smile and say something like, “Well, it has brought joy to our family for years…” God love ’em.
The opposite scenario is equally as seductive. Last night, a woman brought in a 1924 yearbook with the cover torn off. Her husband bought it for $25. Scammed, I thought. $25 with a cover torn clean off? No, actually the yearbook is worth $3,000! Guess it helps that John Wayne was a junior in that yearbook. AND he signed it! With his real name, of course: Marion Morrison. Back when guys were named Marion. And even then they changed their names to John Wayne. So to sum up: you never know on Antiques Roadshow.
I don’t watch the Ant ‘show very much but I’m guessing that they do a bit about the city they happen to be in. Because they were in Vegas for this one, they had a guy talking about some valuable posters of magicians. Did you know that there was a magician in the ’20s named Brush the Great who trained his mustache to grow upwards? Now you do. Thanks to the Ant ‘show.
One last thing, I should mention that the host of this show is Mark L. Walberg. As opposed to Mark Wahlberg, actor and former rapper. I can only imagine how many times Mark L. Walberg has been called Marky Mark (or Dirk Diggler for that matter). I bet he hears Marky Mark at least once per taping. Poor dude. I did not show him that kind of disrespect during my viewing, even though I couldn’t help but have “Good Vibrations” in my head. It was stuck in there to such an extent that I went all Weird Al and rewrote the lyrics with an Antiques Roadshow theme.
“It’s such a good appraisal…it’s such a sweeeeet-”
That’s as far as I got.
What did I learn from Antiques Roadshow? It made me look around my apartment and realize that I would have nothing to bring to a taping of Antiques Roadshow. Also, I learned that I could write this blog post and not ever mention The Funky Bunch. Damn.
